The Australian employment report is due Thursday at 0030GMT
- Employment Change, expected 15K, prior -3.9K
- Unemployment Rate, expected 5.7%, prior 5.6%
- Full Time Employment Change, prior was 11.5K
- Part Time Employment Change, prior was 15.4K
- Participation Rate, expected is 64.8%, prior was 64.7%
While employment growth has been much slower this year so far than it was in the second half of 2015, I think the risk for these figures is that the headline "Employment Change" can beat expectations. 'Expected is, as you can see above, +15K (that's the median consensus estimate from the Bloomberg survey).
Partly I expect a better result this month due to 'sample rotation' used in the ABS survey for this data. Last month's showed lower employment and lower participation than average; if this month's rotation brings in a sample closer to average then the employment numbers should improve.
Of course, there is the argument that the lower employment & participation in the sample is due to weakness in the employment market. Given all the other data coming in the Australian economy I think this is a less likely explanation.
There is, though, a clear trend to growth of part time over full time and I don't expect this to change too much.
- Total employment is +180k for the year
- Full-time employment+32k
- Part-time +149k
The growth in the service sector partly explains this outperformance from part-time.
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I'll dig around for other previews ahead of the data.
